This invention relates to a railroad accessory for reducing the occurrences of railroad car derailments by dynamically indicating the curvature of track being negotiated by a railroad car retaining the accessory.
Car derailments constitute one of the largest single sources of loss incurred by modern railroads. In addition to producing heavy damage to equipment and cargo, derailments necessitate extensive labor commitments for restoring equipment to service and, even more significantly, serious losses result from the interruption of revenue-producing activities during those periods that normal rail service is interrupted. Although many complicated parameters contribute to the various causes of derailment, all such parameters are influenced by the degree of curvature of the tracks on which a train is running. Consequently, the incidence of derailment could be reduced if locomotive engineers possessed accurate, real-time knowledge of the track curvature being negotiated by their trains.
At the present time railroads employ conventional surveying techniques to derive track curvature data that is tabulated in chart form. These charts are used for various purposes but are not normally made available to locomotive engineers. In any case, the availability of such charts would be more of a detriment than an advantage to an engineer since the attention required to follow the charted data would distract the engineer from other critically important duties. Furthermore, the engineer would be unable at all times to accurately identify the specific track curvature data associated with a current position of his train. For these reasons, locomotive engineers presently rely only on past experience and intuitive judgment to determine the critically important parameter of track curvature.
The object of this invention, therefore, is to provide a reliable system for providing locomotive engineers with accurate, real-time track curvature information.